The Sand Men

by Christopher Fowler

  Although she heard a great many accents as she passed through the guests, Lea couldn’t help feeling that she was at a party somewhere in the Thames valley, Teddington or Twickenham perhaps. The guests sheltered from the sun’s unforgiving gaze at the shadowed edges of the tent, darting through the unprotected areas as if avoiding rain, as they would have done at home.

  Introductions were made. They met an absurdly handsome tennis pro and his wife who looked like characters from an old soap opera, a Swedish couple who were in charge of the stables, several American engineers, a mural painter from Estonia, a Spanish interior designer and her artist partner, one of the few women working at Dream World. Lea tried to remember who they all were, but found herself forgetting them moments after each pair had moved on, as if their names had been written in sand.

  Mr Mansour visited early on in the proceedings and stayed for the minimum time he thought propriety allowed. Everyone was connected to the resort’s construction in some way. The air felt dead and sullen, as if a storm was approaching, but the sky revealed nothing more than a high, pale sliver of moon. Lea had not seen a cloud since their arrival in the country.

  Fat blue lobsters were split, brushed with butter and set upon a gas-fired barbecue grill. Immense red steaks were turned until they resembled sunburnt flesh. Vast lurid salads were drizzled in yellow oil. Roy had gone off somewhere. Lea felt someone tapping her shoulder and turned around, spilling white wine.

  ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry!’ She looked at the spreading stain on the shirt before her.

  ‘My fault entirely. I made you jump. I remember the first time I attended one of these little shindigs. I felt exactly the same way. This is the whitest crowd I’ve ever seen, and we lived in Ohio.’ The speaker raised a pair of gigantic sunglasses to the brim of her hat and squinted at her with tiny blue eyes that she had accentuated with thick false lashes. She was tall and underweight, frail-looking, like a flower-child who had become unmoored from her era. She wore brightly-striped slacks and a pair of gaudy silver trainers. ‘I’m Rachel, Ben Larvin’s mother. I only go to the pool before dawn and after dusk, but I’ve seen you heading down there.’

  ‘Hi, I’m Lea. Colette told me you don’t like the sun.’

  ‘I break out in blisters unless I factor up to 50. Really, it’s quite the worst place on earth I could have come to, but Ben and Colette needed help with the children and I couldn’t refuse them.’

  Lea saw now how pale Rachel was. She looked to be in her early seventies, but had good posture and a model’s figure. Her white hair was tied back with a cluster of tiny blue flowers. Her arms rattled with heavy silver bangles.

  ‘It’s an awful lot of fuss, isn’t it?’ said Rachel. ‘I’m sure it’s the last thing you wanted.’ She dabbed vaguely at her blouse with a tissue, unbothered by the stain. ‘You’ll be relieved to know it’s not just for you. At the start of every summer there are always parties to welcome the fresh influx of talent. Do you need a guide?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘To know who you should be speaking to. You have to figure out who’s important and who to avoid.’ Lea must have looked surprised, because Rachel added, ‘Darling, I’m a New Yorker, we take our parties very seriously.’

  ‘Oh, so is my husband.’

  ‘Thank God. This place needs a healthy injection of East Coast cynicism. I heard you playing Addio del passato from La Traviata yesterday. God, I miss the Met. I used to go to the New York Opera every season as a child. There’s nothing here like that, not yet anyway.’

  ‘Hasn’t Zaha Hadid designed an opera house?’

  ‘Yes, but it’ll never get finished. There’s not much call here for the arts. There’s a lot of talk about becoming a “cultural capital”, but this is a city that runs on press releases. Meanwhile, the local husbands pin-protect their wives’ TV channels. I imagine they’re only allowed to watch stuff about makeup, cooking and children. And don’t get me started on the new climate-controlled Mall of the World, it looks like Walt Disney threw up on the plans. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in that Twilight Zone episode, “It’s A Good Life”. But you’re too young to remember.’

  ‘No, I saw that show. My husband has the DVD. He’s a big science fiction fan.’

  ‘I understand you’re a writer. You were working for a magazine in London, is that right?’

  ‘The usual story. Once I wanted to be a famous reporter, but I ended up getting married and writing women’s features. It wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind.’

  ‘Is that why you came here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’re not just following your husband, are you?’ There was a forensic edge to Rachel’s question. ‘Some wives stay behind and rely on monthly visits. Others are looking for something more.’

  Lea decided to be honest, only because she felt sure Rachel would find her out if she lied. ‘I want us to be close again. London is tough on families. It was tough on us.’ She sipped her drink, embarrassed.

  ‘Well, this is the place if you want to be a wife.’

  ‘How did you hear about me so quickly?’

  ‘News travels fast around here. We’ve nothing else to do but sit and talk.’

  ‘So, who should I be talking to?’

  ‘You’ve already missed Tahir Mansour. I guess you met him at the airport. Our compound manager is dry as a stick, but a decent man. I think he regards us as an alien species. Humour never touches him. I don’t think he knows how to smile. He has a huge family tucked away somewhere, but no-one’s ever seen them. He was promoted after Tom Chalmers died.’

  She craned her long neck forward and checked out the crowd. ‘I expect you’ve been given the resort tour by James Davenport, although you may not have met his wife Madeline. Shaped like a beachball, over there. She’s very sweet.’ Rachel clipped the adjective and made it sound poisonous. ‘If you absolutely have to get into conversation with her, don’t try anything complicated and stay away from religion. And of course, Mrs Busabi will have called on you by now. Has she started leaving photocopied recipes in your mailbox yet?’

  Lea laughed. ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Don’t worry, she will. I once asked her why she didn’t just email them to me, and you know what she said? “I don’t approve of women using computers.”’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘If only I was. You know what they say; all men love working in the Middle East and all women hate it. Your other neighbour should be here with her son, but I haven’t seen—ah yes, there she is.’ Rachel wagged a discreet finger over Lea’s left shoulder. ‘That’s Betty Graham and her boy Dean. They live next door to you on the other side. She’s adorable, very ditzy. English. Dean’s been a bit of a handful since his father went to work in the DWG sister resort in Abu Dhabi—he’s there most of the year. I think their marriage is in trouble.’

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Milo, kissing them both. ‘Lea, how lovely to see you again. Welcome to Sodom-Sur-Mer.’ His cadenced German accent made the title more comical.

  ‘We shouldn’t stand together,’ Rachel laughed, ‘the little rebel clan, they’ll think we’re corrupting poor Lea here.’

  ‘You’re right, we should seat her with the other wives. You’d like to get tips on how to roll your dough, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s very me,’ said Lea. ‘Why did you call it Sodom-Sur-Mer?’

  ‘My dear, haven’t you read your company induction brochure? It’s a piece of PR bullshit.’ Milo was wavering slightly, already a little drunk. Lea looked about, making sure they were not being overheard. ‘The bordellos make a fortune while women are imprisoned for a kiss in public. The men do as they like, of course.’

  ‘Oh Milo, don’t start that again,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Everyone’s having affairs in the compound.’ He waved his arm at the guests. ‘Theoretically, having an affair is an automatic prison sentence. At least we’re not under Sharia law, where they stone adultere
rs to death.’

  ‘Really? They’re having affairs?’

  ‘You’d better believe it,’ said Rachel. ‘See that couple of there?’ She aimed a painted nail in the direction of a bony, brilliantined man as Italian as a Tiepolo, and an attractive dark-eyed woman barely half his size. Her augmented breasts seemed absurdly disproportionate on her tiny ribcage. Both were checking their Blackberrys for emails. ‘They’re the Ribisis. Bruno is in infotech, a glorified handyman for the resort’s computer system. Elena Ribisi has an appointment with Ramiro, our tennis coach, every other afternoon, and she’s getting more than just help with her back-hand.’ She drew an invisible cord across the room to a well-built man in too-tight white shorts. ‘Ramiro’s a walking cliché, poor soul. See the woman next to him? The one who looks like Penelope Cruz? That’s his wife, Palmira.’

  ‘I was just introduced to them.’

  ‘They’ve been married just nine months and she’s apparently getting it on with your pool man. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you? Furtive sex, it’s just something to do around here. It only works because everyone’s lives are so regimented. God knows what would happen if the timetable got thrown off.’

  ‘Their parents were probably doing the same thing in commonwealth Africa in the 1960s,’ said Milo rather too loudly. ‘Everybody’s getting an illicit fuck around here except me.’

  ‘I think we’d better take Milo inside,’ said Rachel.

  Lea saw Cara balefully watching them, and knew she was becoming annoyed,

  Yeah, I’m doing it again, Cara, embarrassing you, she thought. Always talking to the wrong people, always standing out. We wanted a clean break from the past and here I am doing it again. Well, I can’t spend my life worrying about your teenage sensitivities.

  EVERYONE BROKE OFF conversation and turned in the direction of the sea, looking up into the sky. The stars were eclipsed by immense gold and violet blossoms. Elliptical rings of fire expanded like shell-bursts, the glittering sprays lighting the distant black mirror of the ocean in a percussion of sonic booms that bounced back from the glass cliffs of the financial district. Between the buildings, the sea was spackled with orange and green shards, so that for a moment it seemed that great shoals of phosphorescent fish had risen to the surface.

  Milo had fallen into a phlegmy slumber on the Larvins’ couch. Outside, Rachel nudged Lea. ‘I used to love firework displays,’ she whispered. ‘Now I look at my watch and turn up the TV just before they start.’

  ‘You sound as if you disapprove.’

  ‘Of fun? Never. It’s just so damned predictable. Laugh here, gasp there, we’re the biggest, the glitziest, the most expensive. Part of me wants it to fail, just to bring back a little spontaneity.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re just an old hippy at heart.’

  ‘You don’t know how true that is. As a teenager I went looking for America and couldn’t find it anywhere, just like Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider. Then I came home and started a family.’

  Lea laughed. ‘I suppose it does all seem kind of immature, but innocent in a way.’

  Rachel peered over the top of her glasses. ‘Oh, don’t you believe it. There are very specific limits placed on our freedom here. Once in a while I have to get away from it all. Don’t ever tell Colette, but sometimes when the kids are on playdates and I have the day to myself, I borrow the runabout and take off to the desert. I don’t go all the way in, just to the edge where the pylons end, to look at the bare unspoiled space. All that sky. I clean the sand off the tyres when I get back and nobody knows. Little acts of rebellion, they’re what get us through.’

  ‘Have you been to the far side of the estate?’ asked Lea. ‘There’s an underpass full of people there. They dented my car.’

  ‘Oh darling, you must have taken a wrong turn. It’s not safe down there. They were going to build more homes for the executives but the villas never got built. That’s the badlands.’

  There was a crash from the lounge. Lea followed Rachel through the French windows and found that Milo had awoken and dropped his walking stick on the coffee table.

  ‘Hey sleepyhead,’ said Rachel, ‘let me get you a strong black coffee. Lea, sit with him a minute, would you?’

  ‘I’m fine, damn it, I don’t need a nurse,’ said Milo. ‘That woman’s always fussing.’ He curled the arms of his glasses behind his ears and looked around. ‘Where is everybody?’

  Lea nodded in the direction of the garden. ‘They’re out there watching the fireworks. You managed to sleep through it.’

  Milo smacked his lips. ‘I’m as dry as a nun’s fanny. I could use a brandy.’

  ‘Milo, who are the people in the underpass?’ she asked.

  ‘Why, did they give you any trouble?’

  ‘I nearly drove into them. They threw a few stones at the car.’

  ‘And they frightened you.’

  ‘No—I was just surprised.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with the good life here. It comes at a cost.’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘Please, stay away from the underpass. The workers live in the dorms on the other side of the compound wall, and they’re not too happy about their conditions. They go to the underpass between shifts. It still connects the two areas; the company never got around to sealing it up.’

  Rachel had returned with coffees. ‘It’s unsafe for Europeans to go onto the workers’ territory. They hang out down there because it’s cooler than in the dorms.’

  ‘They threw rocks at Lea’s car,’ Milo told her.

  ‘I think I startled them,’ said Lea. ‘I was travelling quite fast.’

  ‘They’re upset because they’re not allowed to form unions,’ said Rachel. ‘They left a couple of pipe bombs at the resort.’

  ‘Ach, pipe bombs—little farts of fire, fireworks, not bombs,’ said Milo. ‘If they wanted to blow something up they would have done. A few small gestures of protest and everyone acts like it’s World War Three.’

  Lea was still enjoying the conversation when Roy came to find her. ‘There you are,’ he said, kissing the top of her head. ‘You’re missing all the fun. Come back outside.’ He turned and left. She didn’t like the way he automatically assumed she would follow, but preferred not to risk a disagreement, and rose. Rachel raised her eyebrows at Lea and gave her a look. We’ve been told off.

  Lea stepped outside with her coffee and dutifully watched the end of the display.

  ‘Darling, this is Leo Hardy,’ said Roy, presenting her to a huge brick-skinned man with hard eyes and a downturned mouth. Hardy’s green Polo shirt was pulled too tightly over his barrel chest. He wore razor-edged khaki shorts and socks pulled up too high, like an overzealous scoutmaster.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am,’ he said, leaning forward to squeeze her hand in a meaty fist. There were coarse black spider-hairs on his fingers, even on the backs of his thumbs. He had a strong Dutch South African accent.

  ‘Mr Hardy’s the unit commander at the workers’ barracks,’ Roy explained.

  ‘You’re in the big yellow buildings?’ Lea asked. ‘Unit commander—that sounds military.’

  ‘It’s security terminology,’ Hardy explained. ‘I have my work cut out over there, and they respect a title.’

  ‘Really? Why do they need security?’

  ‘We keep the units ethnically divided to prevent territorial problems, ma’am. The Indian sector is the largest. They’re my responsibility.’

  ‘I think I bumped into a few of them,’ said Lea, ‘down in the underpass at the end of the road.’

  ‘You never mentioned this to me,’ said Roy, affronted.

  ‘It didn’t seem that important.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have been down there,’ said Hardy.

  ‘So everyone keeps telling me. I think I frightened them more.’

  ‘We’re trying to get the police to impose limits on the size of public gatherings. They want to reduce the length of their shifts, bu
t it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Don’t they have a case?’

  ‘They’re paid ten times the amount they could earn back home in their villages. It’s their choice, ja?’

  ‘But the stories in the press—’

  ‘The press want us to fail, Mrs Brook. Any problems we have here are created by foreigners. Most of my workers keep their heads down and get on with their jobs. It’s only a small minority who make their grievances known.’

  ‘What are their grievances? Is it about working conditions?’

  ‘They’re well looked-after, in the same way that you and your husband are here. If you take my advice, you’ll keep away from troublemakers. I’ll see you on Monday, Roy.’ Hardy gave a small, brisk nod of the head to each of them and left.

  ‘YOU COULD HAVE given me some support tonight,’ Roy said finally, as they were undressing for bed.

  ‘I was interested in what Milo and Rachel had to say, that’s all,’ said Lea.

  ‘And what the hell were you doing near the barracks?’

  ‘I was curious. Is that a crime? Would you rather I was like Mrs Busabi and Mrs Davenport, having endless conversations about cupcakes?’

  ‘They’re nice, ordinary people, Lea. They’re not trying to stir up trouble. They’re not the ones hanging around with the crazies.’

  Lea was amazed. ‘Rachel and Milo are not crazy, they just don’t gush on about the resort like the rest of them. I wasn’t trying to upset anyone. At least in London our conversations were actually about something. We could go to parties and hold opposing views without being frowned upon. The women around here are throwbacks. It’s as if feminism never happened. And I think the men all secretly like it that way.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, Lea, and you know it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘This is as tough on me as it is on you. I had nowhere left in London. It was killing us.’

  ‘I just don’t want this to be like it was before,’ said Lea softly.